Thursday, March 25, 2010

Saturday, February 13, 2010

OKLAHOMA WHERE THE BLAH BLAH BLAH ACHOO




Here is a blog post regarding Oklahoma, since we are on a roll with open space discussion.

After I graduated high school, I spent two months in a crummy motel in Los Angeles while taking summer illustration classes at this school called Otis. I had a funny formal drawing teacher there who was all about tension in teaching. If you did something wrong, he would (literally) start crying and screaming until the problem was fixed (he was gray haired--maybe in his 60s). He only cry-yelled at me once because the pear I was drawing kept falling off my desk--(it was probably just a bad pear drawing). He also stole one of my sketchbook images once and told me that he collaged it to one of his pieces at home. He brought back the slivers of paper that were discarded, put them in my shirt pocket and said "good boy".

?

I was also in an illustration course at Otis with this hipster guy who went by the name "Bob Dob". He seemed like a swell enough guy, but I wasn't chomping at the bit to think of clever magazine pictures for his class.

So I said so much for that.

My last year of high school/time in California was exciting though. I was completely oblivious about a number of things---kind of like now, except it is no longer passable at this point. Anyway, I have been trying to get back to way I thought about images for a long time now.

After Otis I thought there was only one logical place to go...

OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY HONORS COLLEGE! OH BABY

So what was so great about Oklahoma? Well, I had somehow developed a certain fascination with being in the desert while I was in Catholic school. Oklahoma seemed like a close enough fit. I would compare the fascination to the manner in which Maria Abramovic described it during her Stamps talk. There was just some great big mystery to this notion that something life changing was waiting out there in a flat field of sand.

After a year of walking around the great plains I came back to Michigan a different person--so I guess it worked.

Once back in Michigan, I started working as an assistant to a former dean at the art school (back when Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw were around). He suggested I go to U of M for stronger academics and a serious art program (although he had heard it was a little different since he had left

-Evan M.

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Welcome To Welcome To To My World Homie

1-18-2010: Interview: Olivia Hammer one on one with Evan McLaughlin

Olivia: So Evan, what can you tell us about the hiatus from your blog?

Evan: Oh that old rag? Well you know how these things go don't you pretty lady? One day you get told to put this here, so you put it there. The next day they want you over someplace else. Before you know it you forgot where where was to begin with. Oh don't be shy go on.

O: There has been a lot of talk recently that you moved your studio space out of the metropolis.

E: Oh that old rag? Well let me tell you. When I first got offered that gold minted closet space. I thought, "By God this house can only hold the smallest paintings man has ever known". I thought that was what they wanted anyway. I imagined the Dean in a white t-shirt and blue jeans laboring endlessly on the hand crafted walls. I imagined him measuring just the perfect size for all the painters. So that they could work and feel like a wolverine. I dreamed him cleaning his sweaty forehead with a red cloth pulled from his back pocket, and he says something like "This is it, this really is it isn't it?". Anyway, I had to ramble on down the road. So I moved my studio space back home.

O: Your move has the world wondering if there is a new lady in your life. Someone keeping you away from the chatter. I don't mean to pry, but there have been reports you are seeing Salma Hayek.

E: Oh come on now, lets not dash on that old rag dear. No comment.

O: Right, moving on. Some people say you walk 5 to 10 miles a day? There have been reports that you walk so rapidly you plow over anyone that gets in your way. And when they say anyone, they mean men, women, children, dogs, squirrels, grandpa...the works. By golly is it true?

E: You bet your ass its true, and don't you forget it.

O: Dully noted Mr. McLaughlin. Dully noted. Moving on, what are you working on these days.

E: Well I am looking at this, and I am painting about that. I am reading those, and snorting crack. Don't feel too lonely, just need to snap. Open the fridge girl, milk.

O: Truly, you are a genius.

E: Oh?

O: What are you doing to do with your BFA when you finally get the diploma? When you reach the mountain top?

E: Oh that old rag? Don't rag on that old rag, I am going to be the mother goose the world never knew it had. The goose who told the greatest stories the world would ever know. Yep, I reckon I just might change the world.

O: Oh Evan, thank you so much for your time. Hail to the victors.

E: HAIL!...

TO THE VICTORS